'My Sky' brings kids close to the sun, moon and stars

“We want to get the kids inspired by what they can see on their own when they look up,” said Tim Porter, Boston Children's Museum project director. “When they're observing, they're developing science skills.”

Eliza King offered an invitation her friend found irresistible. “Want to go see the moon?” asked Eliza. Inside the 14-foot-high geodesic dome in the “My Sky” exhibit at The Boston Children’s Museum, the two 5-year-olds raced around a 5-foot high topographically accurate moon that rotated.

“Look at all the stars!” Eliza exclaimed. “You can touch them!”

“My Sky,” which runs through Jan. 4, turns the sun, moon and stars into spheres of play without sacrificing scientific accuracy.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory provided the scientific expertise on which The Children’s Museum created the interactive elements.

“We want to get the kids inspired by what they can see on their own when they look up,” said Tim Porter, the museum’s project director. “When they’re observing, they’re developing science skills.”

What the exhibit does so well is make learning fun. Kids experience the sky through a backyard camping experience, a park, and a child’s room.

“She’s very interested in the night sky, and they’ve made it very enticing by giving kids ways to be in the exhibit, not just looking at it,” said Eliza’s mother, Heather King, who drove from Northampton to see “My Sky.”

From inside two camping tents, kids slid into sleeping bags and watched a time lapse video of fast moving clouds, setting sun and star-filled night. They’re asked to try to find Mars, Saturn, Orion and Leo.

On another large video screen, kids saw images of solar flares, coronal ejections and other solar events, observed by satellites from the Solar Dynamic Observatory at Harvard University.

“Oh, a solar flare!,” exclaimed Dennis Robinson, 8, as he pressed buttons to change the image.

As Dennis’ fingers jumped from button to button, his mom, Laura Robinson, encouraged him to slow down to look at the passing images.

“If you go slowly, you can make more observations,” said Robinson, a high school math teacher from Athol.

Elsewhere, kids pedaled a bike to watch shadows change with the sun’s movement. They made their own constellations by stretching neon colored bands across an array of white pegs on a black wall board that glowed in the dark underneath a bunk bed. Imaginations ran free as a girl declared she saw a hot dog and a house. On the bed, they listened through headphones to music inspired by the celestial.

For the exhibit developers, the most challenging element was the mechanical model of the sun and moon that shows the phases of the moon through a bedroom window. As kids turn the handle, the screen image changes.

Page 2 of 2 - “Even though it looks simple, it took a year-and-a-half to develop,” Porter said. “The challenge was to translate the motion as a digital image and to create a mechanism that would hold up.”

The scientific accuracy means that parents as well may better understand the sun, moon and stars. And there’s also helpful information on how to encourage children’s interest in the world above them. The idea is that everyone can have a scientist’s curiosity: “The sky is full of wonder. The sky is free to all, the sky is always there.”

Jody Feinberg may be reached at jfeinberg@ledger.com or follow on Twitter @JodyF_Ledger.